She stopped and looked up at the clock. “Time’s up darlings.”
The children protested and pleaded to hear the rest of the story and she merely smiled a satisfied smile. “Your parents would have a say in that. We’ll finish tomorrow. I promise. Now away you go.”
As the class filed out, John approached her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one told better.”
She stopped smiling at the exiting students long enough to glance up at him. She immediately returned her attention to the children.
“I’m John Nagle,” he said, politely offering his hand. “And you’re Aisling McCawler?”
“I know who you are, Dr. Nagle.” Her tone was cold. As the last boy left the room, she moved around her desk to sort through the drawings and papers.
“Really?”
“Small town. People talk. Especially about what affects them.”
“And I affect them?”
“Me you do. Or you would if you had your way.”
John picked up on the hostility. “Did someone start a rumor that I was here to bulldoze the school and put up a Hooters? I’m just here to…”
“You’re here to find the monster. Am I right?”
Hesitantly, he responded, “Right.”
“And when you don’t?”
“I’ll keep looking.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll submit your findings and tell the world that the legendary sea monster doesn’t exist and kill the magic. There’s only one other possible outcome.”
“And that is?”
“You find it. You name it. You send a pair to Sea World where they have a baby that is taught to do tricks and Disney makes a movie about it. The magic is gone and the money is everywhere but here.”
“So you don’t want me to find the truth.”
“I’ve nothing against science as a rule. But in this case, it can do nothing but make the world lesser. You see, I like living in a world where dragons and monsters exist. I like to believe there are true heroes out there who will defend a princess against a fire-breathing dragon. Not blast it with nuclear weapons or destroy its habitat with industrial waste, but face it head on armed with nothing more than and love and a pointed stick.” She threatened him with an invisible weapon with enough conviction to make John step back. “I think we need at least the possibility of such things. Without it, the world is a colorless, clinical place and we’re all too much like…like you, doctor.”
“If you’ve something against knowledge or reality, I …”
“I’m a teacher, Dr. Nagle. I have nothing against knowledge. But I like to see the line between fantasy and reality grayed a little. A little doubt keeps minds fertile and open to new ideas. It keeps the world interesting.”
“I prefer to see a clear line between fantasy and reality.”
“When the line is that thin, it makes it too easy for the good guys and bad to be confused. They’re standing too close together.”
John scoffed a little. “I’m afraid the good guy doesn’t always stay on his side of the line any more than he usually wears a white hat.”
“I prefer shining armor but have it your way.”
“My way requires your help.”
“Mine? Why me? What have I to do with it?”
“You’re quite right about me looking for the beast. My fellow realists and I have been following a certain family that used to be able to summon the beast, according to legend.”
“And…?”
John noticed she seemed less surprised or skeptical than defensive. The bizarre tale did not seem to faze her in the least. “So it may be that you are the end of this family tree. I was wondering if you had any—”
“Good day, Dr. Nagle.”
“But I was—”
“I said good day. Around these parts, that’s something we say at the end of a conversation.” With that she turned and walked assertively from the room.
As John stood perplexed, trying to plot his next move, he noticed a small boy standing at his side looking up at him.
“Well, she’s a tough nut to crack,” he said to the lad, not truly expecting a reply.
“Are you a real doctor?”
“A doctor of paleontology. Yes.”
The boy held up a scraped elbow. “I hurt this today.”
John looked at the elbow. “I’m not that kind of…” He decided on a course of action that would be quicker explaining what his doctrine was in. He looked closely at the elbow, blew on it a bit. “Did that hurt?”
“Nuh uh,” said the lad.
“Well, this isn’t too awful bad. You weren’t drinking and driving, were you?”
“Nuh uh. I’m five.”
“Well, all right then, Five. I won’t turn you in this time. Go home and clean it out very carefully. Promise me. Okay?”
The boy nodded. “Okay.” He left the room holding his boo-boo.
“And be sure and show your mother,” John called after him. He was unaware Aisling was watching him from the hall. She couldn’t help but smile slightly.
Nagle and his entourage checked into a bed and breakfast near the shore of the loch. All establishments there seemed to have some connection to the legend. This one was called The NessView Lodge.
The guys were setting their bags down as John stepped up to the desk to sign in. The owner greeted him.
“Two double rooms if you have them please,” John said as he fumbled for his wallet.
“We have, indeed. But only one of them faces the loch. Is that all right, sir?”
“That’ll be fine.” John slid his credit card to the man and scanned the wall for a price list.
“Hey John,” Mac called. “Check this out.”
John turned to see the three of them pressed against a wall-size glass case. On the other side of the glass was a skeleton of what was touted as a small Loch Ness Monster. The winding specimen looked to be eighteen to twenty feet long with a neck as long as its tail. Its head was reptilian and almost too small for the body, lending to the streamlined look. The body was cylindrical and sported two pairs of long flat feet suggested by the five-toed skeletal paddles. The S-positioned skeleton was remarkably complete and almost convincing. Even these scientists couldn’t immediately debunk the exhibit.
John stepped closer and read the plaque in front of it.
Skeleton discovered by
Seamus MacKenzie
- 1946 -
Origin Unknown
John was intrigued. “Funny I’ve never heard of this skeleton. Who is this…?”
“That was found by my father,” the proprietor proudly stated as he came around the counter. “He didn’t know what it was at the time because most of it was inside the rock, you know. I took to chipping it free and found that most of that rock was just hardened mud. Cleaned up easy it did.”
“And you think this is the monster?” Murphy asked, his eyes pressed to the glass.
“What do you think?” the man put back to him. “That’s all that matters.”
John noticed two certificates displayed on the floor inside the glass. One was an obviously edited letter from the Smithsonian Institute claiming that the sample of this skeleton tested was not a Plesiosaur because it “Is less than five hundred years old.” The other was from the Museum of Natural History and stated only that the origin of this indeterminate species had not yet been established.
John turned to the smiling innkeeper. “I’m Dr. Nagle. Would you mind if I took a closer look at this skeleton?”
The man shook John’s hand firmly. “I’m Mike MacKenzie, owner of this establishment. And yes. As a matter of fact, I would mind,” he said. Coming around to the front of the desk, his noticeable limp suggested more than a stiff leg. The loose sock drooping around the metallic hinged angle joint gave away the presence of the prosthetic leg. “I’m afraid I only take it out about once a decade.”
“Why is that?” Frank asked.
“Like the Turin shroud. Afraid som
eone will figure it out?” Murphy challenged.
“Me and the beastie’s got a history, sure we do.” He adjusted his leg in an obvious manner to suggest the reference had something to do with it.
John was beginning to realize this wily Scot was a master of inference. “Are you suggesting the monster took your leg off?” he asked, hoping his smile was less obvious than it felt.
“I was sitting on a rock.” He gestured out toward the lake. “Out there. Mindin’ me own business and doing a spot of fishing. That rock hangs out over the water and it’s a fine spot for it. Go look. You’ll see it. I was no more’n ten and thinkin’ about nothing more than how good it felt to bring home dinner for me family. Felt like a real man. All of a sudden this great beastie comes straight up out of the water and takes me leg right at the knee. The rest of me sat there looking at the water, mostly in shock, waiting for it to come back and take the rest of me. Well, I must not taste too good ‘cause it never came back. Not to this day. In all the years since I never saw anything like it. But I keep waiting because one of these days some smart fella’s gonna catch it and I’ll get me some vindication.”
“You’re saying this is the baby of the one that took your leg?”
MacKenzie turned and limped back around the counter. “Your rooms are ready, gentlemen. Breakfast is at eight.”
The scientists stood their ground, reluctant to accept his dismissal without a fight.
“I make no real claim to what it is. But you’re a bunch of college men and here you are all intrigued. That’s why I keep it there. You look. You see the beastie. You think.”
“These testimonials,” John said. “They don’t seem to claim anything other than it’s not what it appears to be. Why boast them?”
“They only say it’s not a Plesiosaur. But then I never said it was. Would you like to see your room, doctor?” His smile was as broad as it was challenging. He offered his guests keys and they reluctantly abandoned the exhibit to retire to their rooms.
Ten miles south of the inn, deep beneath the cold water, the large sea-goer drove its narrow head into the loose shale at the bottom of the underwater cave. Like a giant eel, it pushed the sediment aside and slithered through it to emerge on the other side. It came up and lifted its head from the water to look around the cave.
Dim light shone from a distant, concealed opening somewhere above and gave an eerie glow to the damp space. The low light was still many times brighter than the shadow world in which this creature spent most of its life and it could clearly see the robbed nest in disarray. The scent around it was oddly lifeless. No thief to punish. No trail to follow. It sniffed the soil around the precious mound and snarled a low decibel growl never heard on the surface.
Outside the nest, the sediment gathered on the bottom of the loch lay as it had, stirred but level and quiet. Suddenly the shale exploded and the great bulk of the raging beast burst though and hurtled upward.
Three hundred feet above, a twelve-foot fishing boat trolled slowly across the dark loch. The two middle-aged occupants had crossed the loch day or night dozens of times and needed no light or compass. They knew what direction they were going and how much to compensate for wind or choppy water, neither of which were present this night. As they passed the halfway point, the silence was violently shattered when the boat was seemingly hit from both sides. The aluminum sides were hammered inward with force enough to buckle the boat slightly.
“Fookin hell!” shouted the startled bow rider. He looked back at the terrified helmsman before joining him in noticing that the inward dents showed clear rows of teeth. They had just enough time to look at each other in confusion and fear before the tiny craft was crushed like a paper cup and dragged below the surface, taking the entrapped occupants down with it. The loch once again fell silent and still.
Chapter Twelve
The full moon fought to pierce the overcast sky shrouding Northern Scotland, leaving the outskirts of town in an eerie darkened mood. John found his way along the unfamiliar road as best he could despite the total absence of streetlights and having received directions from an old local with the thickest Glasgow accent he’d ever encountered. Over the past five years, he had adapted to eating the food, driving on the ‘proper’ side of the road and spending money without mentally converting it from pounds to dollars and back. But the Glasgow accent remained a mystery to rival that of the loch itself. It was a stereotypical Scottish accent tenfold. But the man got him to this place. John pulled off the rural road and got out of his car to look around. This intersection looked exactly like the last three. With the sun gone he was sure the next would offer no more enlightenment. He stood on his toes and craned his neck in hopes of finding a street sign or marker of any kind that might lend some guidance. All he saw of hope was an old man walking toward him.
The man walked slowly, putting little or no weight on the hand-made walking stick he touched to the ground with each step. As the man was a longstanding local, he looked boldly at the stranger and accurately assessed the situation.
“Y’all right, mate?”
John breathed a sigh of relief that he could easily understand the old fellow. His accent was strong, but legible. “Been better. I’m a bit lost.”
“Must be to be looking out here.”
“Can you tell me where Llewellen Close is?”
The old man scratched his whiskered chin and smiled. “I should. I was here before that road was. Seen it built, I did. See, that main road over there used to be the only road anywhere out here but that was all we needed. Wasn’t no houses or semi-detached estates built then. I used to hunt right over there on that hill. Was a farm then. Mickey Harris owned most of it. Irish fella he was. It was his farm but he didn’t mind if you took a few birds. I had a setter dog named Buster. Best dog you’d ever want to own. Find them birds every time. Once I took him over that hill right there. See that rise? There’s a mound on the other side of it. Well, I saw Buster go up to it and bark, but he wouldn’t go in. I tried to send him in ‘cause I knew there was birds or hares or something in there but Buster he wouldn’t have no part of it. He circled and barked and then ran off. Harris told me that was because it was a fairy hill. The fairies is in there and no dog will go near it. I don’t believe that sort of thing but truth was that dog just stayed off that hill like he was told to. Well, that was the only road we needed until Fred Murray over there ran a fence across it. He knew that all the traffic would have to go around now. We didn’t want to pay him toll so they put in a new road that ran down and over there. Went right next to Tom Harris’ house. He dinnae like that.”
“He didn’t?”
“Nay. He dinnae like it at all. He paid the county to build a road to go around the other way. We still had the one, but now we had two, unless we wanted to go up to Harris’ farm. Had fresh milk and eggs there. But when the houses got built years later, they had to build another road across for the trucks to get through. That one went all the way across and they dinnae put in no roundabouts.”
“So is that Llewellen Close then?”
“Llewellen Close? Up there? No, lad. Aire ye daft? Go ye down there and take the next right. That’s it.”
John was almost out of breath just from listening but it paid off. He took the turn as instructed and found the road in minutes. The drive was too narrow to back a car through in the dark so John left his car on the side of the road and walked up to the house
The quaint cottage was exactly as he’d imagined a schoolteacher’s house. There was a faint light in one window seemingly no brighter than a reading lamp. But for that, the house was darker than the clearing in which it sat, making it all but impossible for John to determine the front of the house from the back. As he strained, he caught the fleeting image of a man running away from the house and vanishing silently into the night. He thought to call after him but halted, electing to remain in stealth mode until he was better able to assess the situation. If there were any more marauders or ne’er-do-wells lurk
ing about, his purpose would be better served by not yet announcing his presence.
Silent as the night John crept up to where he’d seen the stalker appear. There was a small side window with no light. The window was hinged at the side and slightly open and John suspected it had been opened from the outside. He had no frame of reference or evidence on which to base his hypotheses on other than it fit his train of thought and justified his lurking outside the window in the dark. Honestly suspecting foul play, John placed a cautious hand on the antique, over painted windowsill and pulled himself up to where he could see an assailant should one be present.
John was a poor spy and had been discovered well before he knew it. He found out only when he felt the sharp and blinding sting on the top of his head. Whatever had struck him hurt enough to give him to shout an obscenity out loud. Before he could think to recoil it, the same cruel implement struck his hand soundly. Pulling away from the window, John grasped his aching hand and ran for the front of the house. He was certain he was bleeding and hurried to where there was enough light there to see.
As he rounded the corner of the cottage, his bludgeoning assailant cut him off. The ominous silhouette stood before him, back lit from the house and wielding what at first appeared to be a tomahawk or hatchet, then a mallet. Only when he stopped ducking the anticipated though undelivered blows did he see that he had been pummeled by a wooden meat tenderizer at the hand of the schoolteacher.
Aisling McCawler held the weapon at the ready. “You’ve been told to stay away from here, you little—” She stopped and peered into the darkness. “What the…? You’re a grown man, ya filthy…”
“The fella you meant to whack ran off that-a-way,” John said gesturing with his head while he held his wounded hand.
“Did he now? And he stuck your innocent head in the window before he left, did he?”
John came cautiously around her and into the light of the front door in hopes that a clear view of him might be somewhat disarming. “I was coming up to see you and saw someone run off that way. I didn’t know how many there were so I came around to see. That’s when you…” He pointed to his head.
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